


Carpal Strain

by publicbenches



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/publicbenches/pseuds/publicbenches
Summary: Smellerbee has a new job. It’s taking some getting used to.
Relationships: Jet & Longshot & Smellerbee & Zuko, Longshot & Smellerbee (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 90





	Carpal Strain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EudociaCovert](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Faces Turned Forward](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21173606) by [EudociaCovert](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert). 



> I don’t know where this came from!!! The freedom fighters have taken over my mind I’m sorry!!!!!!!
> 
> This is inspired by EudociaCovert’s The Best Path series! Just a little drabble I wrote when I couldn’t sleep the other night. It takes place in some nebulous time after Smellerbee gets a job carving calligraphy brush handles 💕
> 
> “Blue” and “Shi” are Zuko’s alter egos 😎 if you don’t know that you should absolutely go read the series!!!

For all the practice she has whittling arrow shafts for Longshot, Smellerbee isn’t used to the constant, detailed work required for her job carving brushes. It’s not the quality she struggles with; her employer hasn’t had any complaints for her yet. But spending all day hunched over with a bamboo rod in one hand and her best whittling blade in the other, grip tense for hours on end and focus determinedly set on her work leaves her with more than a few kinks that need wringing out by the time she heads home for the day. 

Her hands have taken the brunt of the strain today, it seems. She frowns to herself as she stretches her fingers, popping the joints once, and then again until they won’t pop anymore. The pain doesn’t leave. She slips her gloves off in an effort to… alleviate the pressure, or something. She doesn’t know, but it’s nice to feel the breeze on skin she usually has covered, so she tucks the gloves into her waistband and makes her way home. 

Blue and Longshot are already putting a fire together for dinner when she arrives. She does her best to quell the niggling suspicion she feels at Jet’s absence. “Hey,” she sighs, dropping her whittling knife on the cushion of Blue’s pack with only half a thought spared to putting it away properly later. She flops into the hammock with enough force to make the bearings creak, but it holds. 

“Welcome back,” Blue says, not looking up from where he’s fumbling their pair of spark rocks. Longshot looks up at her in acknowledgment. He takes the spark rocks from Blue’s hands with measured patience, clicking them together with practiced hands and lighting the fire almost immediately. Blue groans in frustration. Longshot pats his back sympathetically. 

Smellerbee’s working up the energy to ask after Jet when he pushes their front curtain aside and enters the room with a heavy looking paper bag. 

“I got us the best looking vegetables I could find. Also quite a few potatoes.” He notices Smellerbee on the hammock and gives her a smile and a nod. “Hey,” he greets. “How was work?”

“Fine,” she replies. She tips her head towards the bag in his arms. “Looks like you guys had a good day.”

Jet’s easy smile pulls into a grin. “You’d be surprised how much some of the older merchants are willing to pay to have a few guys move their stock around.”

He joins Blue and Longshot in the kitchen-corner and sets the vegetables down next to their sack of rice. It’s running low, Smellerbee notices. They’ll have to invest in more soon. 

She rubs idly at her palms. They’ll need to start looking for a new place soon, too. She hates to admit it, but now that Blue’s back their room is more cramped than she can handle, and the single vent doesn’t let in nearly enough light at night to keep her skin from flushing with uncomfortable, suffocating panic. The others don’t love living on top of each other either; Blue and Jet get testy when they’re cooped up too long, and she can tell Longshot’s boundless patience has been thinning lately. She doesn’t think there will be any major fallout — not with Jet and Longshot, at least. She doesn’t know about Blue, but she hopes he’s come to care about them enough not to march out the second he’s had too loud of an argument. 

“I’m gonna go draw some water from the well outside,” Jet announces. 

Blue stands, his frustration with the spark rocks still visible in the lines of his face. “I’ll come help,” he says. Jet nods, then turns to Smellerbee. 

“Think you can get a head start cutting some of the potatoes?”

She nods automatically, hopping up out of the hammock and taking Blue’s place next to Longshot. Patting herself down, she chooses a knife best suited for the job, wipes it down in the wash basin and leans over to fish a potato out of the bag. Turning so the potatoes, should they slip from her hands, won’t fall into the fire, she fits her thumb against the hilt of the knife and gets to work. 

She grimaces at the twinge in her fingers as she starts, the motion almost identical to the careful carving she’s been doing all day. She pauses and rubs at the ligaments again, but it doesn’t do much. 

_ It’s just a few potatoes,  _ she decides. No need to make a fuss. She’ll sleep on it and hopefully the pain will be gone by morning. 

Blue and Jet come back with two buckets between them, one for cooking and one to refill the wash basin. “We've got some experience hunting,” Jet’s saying, “but I don’t know where we would find game around here. Maybe if we tried the fields further from the center of the city, but even then it’s different from trapping in a forest.”

“Plus you don’t know whose property you might be straying into,” Smellerbee chimes in. “Cities are weird like that — if the land doesn’t belong to a farmer, it belongs to like, the King or something. I dunno,  _ someone _ will get mad. S’not worth it, if you ask me.”

Jet nods his agreement. “Anyways, I’m sure if I asked around I’d be able to find a spot to snag a squirrel-rabbit or two.”

“Are you sure the people around here won’t prefer to buy livestock meat?” Blue points out. 

“I don’t think Lower Ring folks are too worried about what kind of animal they’re eating, as long as it’s cheap and the meat’s not rotten.” Jet pours the cooking water into the pot already over the fire. His tone is neutral, but Smellerbee knows him well enough to hear the frustration humming just behind his teeth. Poverty is a new injustice to them, when money was never needed back in the forest. For Jet, it’s just another blow from the Fire Nation, and she doesn’t know if she can refute that. 

She’s halfway through a potato when her knife hand seizes up painfully. She pulls it back with a sharp hiss, leaving the knife lodged in the vegetable. “Ouch,” she mumbles before she can stop herself. 

The others look up. “What’s wrong?” Jet asks. Carefully nonchalant. “You cut yourself?”

Smellerbee shakes out her hand. “No,” she grumbles. “Hand’s just cramping after work today. It’ll pass in a sec.”

Jet raises an eyebrow. “You don’t  _ have  _ to cut the potatoes. Here, I can take over.” He holds out a hand expectantly. 

She shakes her head. “It’s fine, I can do it.”

“Smellerbee,” Jet says, in that tone that isn’t  _ quite  _ a command but would have held the shape of one, once. Now it just sounds like he’s chastising her. “Seriously. Go rest your hands. You’ve got work again tomorrow, and I’m sure I can handle a few potatoes.” His tone lilts up on humor at the end and he offers her a wry smile. She huffs at him, caves and hands him the potato with her knife still halfway through its flesh. 

“Okay, but I’ll laugh if you cut yourself,” she promises, sitting back. Her hand hasn’t quite loosened up yet, and she digs at the meat between her thumb and forefinger irritably. 

There’s a quiet  _ clang  _ as Longshot lowers the spoon he was using to stir the rice into the pot. He shifts slowly over to sit beside her, and she looks up when he holds out a hand. 

“Uh, okay,” she says, resting her hand in his. 

He takes it between both of his and starts rubbing firm circles into her palm, slow and methodical. She winces at first as the bones of her hand seem to creak in protest, but slowly the tension eases and some of the soreness bleeds out, and she has to admit, it feels nice. 

He moves on to her fingers, but instead of massaging them he pulls them backwards, stretching the tendon running down through her hand. It burns, but in the satisfactory kind of way that her calves burn when she stretches them after a long day on her feet. After that he curls her fingers one by one, rolling her hand into a fist, before shaking it out again. Then he sets her hand down and offers to take the other. 

“Thanks,” Smellerbee says, marveling at how much better her hand feels. “That really helped.”

Longshot glances up, mouth quirked in the faintest ghost of a smile. 

“Where’d you learn to do that?” she asks, fascinated as he works out the knots in her left hand. 

Longshot tilts his head in the direction of his bow, propped up against the far wall. 

Smellerbee nods slowly. “Makes sense. I guess you probably have to stretch your hands a lot, huh?”

He shrugs one shoulder. By the time he’s done, the soreness in her hands is quieter, still present but far more manageable. 

“That was great — my hands feel brand new!” Smellerbee marvels, turning them over in awe. “Thanks Longshot,” she adds, sincere. 

He gives her that smile again and reaches up to tip his hat down just enough to hide his eyes. She laughs. Blue’s voice cuts between them, pulling them from the moment. 

“Uh, what do I do if it starts bubbling?”

Smellerbee scoots back over to examine the pot. “Shi, it’s  _ supposed  _ to bubble. Just don’t let it boil over,” she replies. 

“What does that even  _ mean?” _

“What do you mean, ‘what does that even mean?’ It means don’t let the rice spill everywhere! Here, just give me the spoon.”

She takes it from him. Her hand, she notices, doesn’t protest. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading 💕


End file.
